The MFM Convo: Not Your Grandfather’s Republican

Matt Stone is a millennial. He performs in community theater. He enjoys playing video games. He is gay.

And he’s an unabashed reform-oriented Republican who is fighting to put Mainers first. He’s the type of Republican Leftists particularly hate, because — in their eyes — he’s not supposed to be a Republican.

Stone is challenging radical Leftist Sen. Shenna Bellows in the Senate District 14 race in the 2018 Midterms.

Maine First Media reached out to this stereotype-busting Republican to participate in our new weekly feature, The MFM Convo.

Each week, a political figure in Maine will casually answer some of the questions that matter to Maine-first residents.

In this week’s edition, Matt explains what type of response he’s received from both the gay community upon hearing he’s a Republican, and from Republicans upon hearing he’s gay. And as an added bonus, Matt even has some dirt he shares on Democrat-in-Disguise, Sen. Angus King.

We started out as we always do, by asking Matt what “Maine-first” means to him.

When asked what made him decide to run for office, Matt says he’s always wanted to serve the people of Maine but had to wait until he had the right life experiences to qualify him for the job.

Matt has an unusual political background for a Maine-first candidate — having once worked for Sen. Angus King.

However, it was that experience, in part, that drove Matt to the positions he holds today.

And working with Sen. King also showed Matt the power money has over politicians. He even gives Maine First Media readers an example he saw first hand!

It is not always easy being a gay Republican. Many members of the gay community have been known to ostracize conservative members of the community. Meanwhile, many in the Republican Party have actively opposed things like gay marriage. However, Matt says he hasn’t felt any backlash yet from the gay community, and the Republicans he’s met with have been warm and welcoming.

Matt is no RINO. He’s a Maine-first candidate.

However, He’s also accepting welfare for politicians. This is one area Maine First Media disagrees with Mr. Stone.

Candidate welfare forces Mainers to fund campaigns of candidates out of their district and even candidates who they hate. Imagine being forced to donate to Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House.

It’s a direct violation of the 1st Amendment.

However, Stone points out; he’s playing within the rules of the game.

“I understand why many Mainers, usually Republicans, raise objections to the Clean Election system,” Stone said. “But like it or not, it is the law of the land. Those already allocated funds should not be limited to the exclusive use of our political opponents. That’s not a principled stand, that’s political malpractice.”

“I want to win; therefore I am comfortable using the Clean Election system to meet that end,” Stone said. “And frankly, I rather like that I’m limited in only being able to take funds from my fellow Mainers, instead of being forced to cozy up to the Republican donor class that has betrayed our party’s base time and time again.”

We would remind Mr. Stone that he’s not asking his fellow Mainers to voluntarily contribute to his campaign, he’s forcing them to hand over their money.

Having said that, many first-time challengers see candidate welfare as a good option, and we hope Matt will change his position on this issue in future races. And if he is able to unseat the radical Sen. Bellows, there is a lot of good Matt would fight for — like ending welfare for illegal aliens.

He also has ideas for improving education in our state, innovating energy policies and fixing the broken referendum system.

Our standard final question in this series is, “If you could have lunch with President Trump, what would the mealtime conversation be?”

Matt is a fan of President Donald Trump.

Along with some foreign policy questions, Stone says he’d expect to do a lot of listening were he ever to have the honor of sharing a lunch table with the President.

We reached out to Sen. Bellows to answer similar questions under this same format. We have not heard back from her as of the time of this publishing.

“Bellows served as Executive Director of the ACLU of Maine from March 2005 until stepping down in September 2013 to run for U.S. Senate. She was a leader of Mainers United for Marriage, working for seven years to legalize same-sex marriage in Maine, and she co-chaired the 2011 Protect Maine Votes campaign to restore same-day voter registration.. Most recently, Bellows led the opposition to warrantless drone surveillance in Maine, and organized a privacy campaign to require warrants for access to private cellphone communications. Prior to her work at the ACLU of Maine, Bellows was the national field organizer at the ACLU in Washington, DC, organizing nationwide civil liberties campaigns including one in opposition to the Patriot Act.” Enough said. Vote for Matt Stone.